I noticed something about the Inkscape Wiki FAQs Page that I thought needed to be addressed. Specifically, there's something about the "Helping fellow users" subsection (under subsection 4.2 Are there non-coding ways to help?) that I thought could be improved. But I'm new to Inkscape and so I thought I should post about it here.

The Helping fellow users subection states "...you can help us achieve this goal directly, by helping other users." And one of the suggested methods is:

* Create clipart. You can upload it to the openclipart.org project.

I don't have anything against openclipart.org. (In fact, I think it's a wonderful website and resource.) And, in principle, I don't have anything against Inkscape users donating their work to openclipart.org. That said, I think doing this as the FAQ suggests might be counterproductive to the "Spread the word - Inkscape Marketing and Evangelism" subsection.

I only say that because I can think of a better way to both "Helping fellow users" and "Spread the word" simultaneously. Here's how:

Creative Commons Licenses
.

I thought that this should be obvious. Licensing under creative commons can still grant users much of the same rights as having it "donated" under Public Domain, but with added limitations such as requiring attribution.

All images hosted on openclipart.org are done so under a Public Domain license, which essentially has the intellectual property owners give up all rights - including the right to attribution (getting credit). In the public domain, people can use the work any way they wish without even having to mention the artist or where it came from. As such, it would not be the ideal method of Spreading the word about Inkscape. By omission, it could even be implied that the work was created by whomever uses it, especially if it gets used in a derivative work.

But with CC (Creative Commons) licenses there would always be a requirement to provide attribution to the artist. And depending on the [url=[url=http://creativecommons.org/licenses/]type of license[/url], Creative Commons may or may not have other restrictions, such as only for non-commercial purposes or Share Alike (where derivative works must also be licensed under a similar CC Share Alike license).

As stated on CreativeCommons.org's Full FAQ (under subsection 2.11 "[url=http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#How_do_I_properly_attribute_a_Creative_Commons_licensed_work.3F]How do I properly attribute a Creative Commons licensed work?[url]"), the requirements to attribute a Creative Commons work are:

(1) to keep intact any copyright notices for the Work; (2) credit the author, licensor and/or other parties (such as a wiki or journal) in the manner they specify; (3) the title of the Work; and (4) the URL for the work if applicable.

The FAQ and licenses also state:

If you are making a derivative use of a work licensed under one of our core licenses, in addition to the above, you need to identify that your work is a derivative work, ie. "This is a Finnish translation of the [original work] by [author]" or "Screenplay based on [original work] by [author]."

For example, if the artist attaches a description such as this:

CC. Some rights reserved.
Ramadan_fine_512 by bsperan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Then, legally, anyone who wants to use this image may do so for any purpose (either commercial or noncommercial), but they must attribute this image to a "bsperan" and mention "http://www.flickr.com/photos/xpace/3193302803" as the source. Furthermore, the Share Alike clause also requires that if a derivate work is created from this image (such as a collage or modified version), then it must also be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license and the original work and artist must be mentioned. So if someone were to release a modified version they would have to mention something like "This is a retextured version of the Ramadan_fine_512 image by bsperan."

Because Creative Commons has good name recognition and is growing in popularity I think it could be used a way of increasing awareness of Inkscape. And, if done properly, I think the CC attribution requirements could be used towards this end.

For example, we could put "Created in " underneath our images. Then, if a CC license is mentioned as used for this image, anyone who uses the image must mention the URL where it came from. So some who see the image in use and are curious may go to the link and see the "Created in " and find that it is a link that can be clicked. They just might click on it and find the Inkscape home page.

Alternatively, we could license our image like this:

CC. Some rights reserved.
El_Painting_Redux was created in Inkscape by bsperan and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Similar idea, except that now it is very likely that whoever uses the image will also mention in their collective work (such as a software project) or derivative work (such as a collage or desktop wallpaper) that the original image was "created in Inkscape". And they might even mention inkscape.org.

BTW, Here's how I used BBcode for the banner:


And here's the HTML code to add this to webpages:


Personally, I would prefer to mention that in big, bold letters! However, I'm having a hard time finding larger Inkscape advertising banners...

So far, I have not found may image hosting services that specialize in Creative Commons content. It seems most Creative Commons images are found on popular image hosts such as Flickr.com. At least on Flickr they can adjust the image license directly through the Flickr web interface. But it is best to also mention in the description the CC license used and who to credit, etc. And Flickr's Creative Commons page explains the differences in licenses and allows users to browse images by license category. (I wish other image services would offer such features...)

Currently, there are over 90 million images on Flickr with some sort of Creative Commons license. And there is also the Flickr Creative Commons Group Pool (of which I am a new member). It currently has over 14,000 images... and growing.

One of the few hosts I found that does specialize in Creative Commons licensed material is Free Game Arts. But this group not only hosts images, but also other types of content as well as it's own forum. It describes itself as:

Free Game Arts promotes the use and development of free and "open source" game resources, including 3D models, sound effects, textures, games and development tools. To submit your content, choose a free license, then tell us where we can download your content in a zip file with a text file explaining which license it uses.

Like I mentioned in my first post, I believe that the "4.2 Are there non-coding ways to help?" subsection could be improved. How about changing this:

* Create clipart. You can upload it to the openclipart.org project.

to something like this:

* Create clipart. You can upload it to the openclipart.org project. Or you could upload it to Flickr.com and easily click on a Creative Commons license.

And then in the "Spread the word - Inkscape Marketing and Evangelism" subsection the following could be added:

* Advertise Inkscape with banners. Place a small banner and link on your website or under your art such as "Artwork created in ". How to do this:

Example BBcode for a banner:


Code: Select all

[url=http://www.inkscape.org/][b]Created in [img]http://www.inkscape.org/images/inkscape_80x15.png[/img][/b][/url]
Example HTML code to add a banner to webpages:


Code: Select all

<a href="http://www.inkscape.org/"><b>Created in <IMG alt=Inkscape! src="http://www.inkscape.org/images/inkscape_80x15.png" height=15 width=80></b></a>

The reason ocal went with pd is so that the clipart is more useful. there are lots of contexts where you'd be producing something with clipart that giving attribution just isnt really appropriate. (if your doing a 1 sided flyer for instance.)

I don't know if I would describe it as "more useful". However, I will admit that Public Domain gives users a lot more freedom on how to use the material with few restrictions or requirements. Yes, I can see situations where even providing attribution would be difficult, such as your mention of using the art on flyers. In such cases using CC and the like might be difficult.

But I was not asking everyone to stop distributing under openclipar.org. (Nor was I attempting to be critical of the Inkscape FAQ.) I said it was a great site and there's nothing wrong with artists placing their work in Public Domain. I respect that. And I realise that Creative Commons is not ideal in all situations. I just thought that distributing under Creative Commons would work more symbiotically with the goal of exposure (both for Inkscape and the artist).

Some people may not realize that with Creative Commons you have the option of licensing a work under multiple licenses at once. You could have a work posted somewhere under traditional copyrights only. And then shared for download at another place under one or more CC licenses. And then shared at still another place or on an individual permission basis under another scheme. CC Licensing itself does not prevent this or conflict with traditional copyright. For example, I like to share content dual licensed under CC-BY-NC (Attribution, Non-Commercial) and CC-BY-SA (Attribution, Share-Alike). People can choose which license they want to use. Both allow modification and derivative works. But while the CC-BY-NC license does not require derivative works to use a similar CC license, the CC-BY-SA license does. The tradeoff is that if you want to use this to create a derivative for commercial purposes you either have to use the CC-BY-SA license or contact the artist for permission.

Anyway, what's wrong with my suggestion of mentioning Flickr.com in the Inkscape FAQ; i.e., " Or you could upload it to Flickr.com..." ? Why only openclipart.org? There's several different image hosts that support various free and open source licenses, including Public Domain. How about deviantART, which has a huge database of images and art in a variety of licenses? Or, how about Artistic Club, which also allows users to share their art (as well as text, films, & music) using a variety of licenses?

I would almost go as far as saying that by having the official Inkscape FAQ suggest openclipart.org exclusively you are basically having it endorse openclipart.org exclusively and endorsing the Public Domain license exclusively... Personally, I prefer it when I'm informed/reminded of the possibilities.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with adding more options, I just said why ocal went with pd.
The reason we mention ocal currently is its a spin off of inkscape, we'd had clipart in the share folder originally, but it quickly got unmanagable, so ocal was born to host it. The lack of other options is just cos no ones added any.
Is that page on the wiki locked? If not you can add some alternatives.

bsperan wrote:I would almost go as far as saying that by having the official Inkscape FAQ suggest openclipart.org exclusively you are basically having it endorse openclipart.org exclusively and endorsing the Public Domain license exclusively... Personally, I prefer it when I'm informed/reminded of the possibilities.

I don't think Inkscape should be criticised for singling out OpenClipart. OpenClipart was birthed by prominent members of the Inkscape community, so it's a very intimate relationship. One of OpenCliparts goals is to promote SVG as an open standard--most other gallery sites don't support SVG at all. Most other gallery sites provide their service in an effort to make money--I'm not aware that OpenClipart generates any income from the service it provides.

Personally I don't have an issue with listing other image hosts, but at at what point do you choose not to list every service that exists? And whilst the various licensing some hosts offer would benefit the artist, does it really help Inkscape to promote those hosts?